


september's just around the corner

by livtontea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Gen, Halloween, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Pre-Canon, a man is killed through willpower alone, lily and james are BAMFs, lily voice: FUCKING OBLITERATED, very seriously im very serious about this crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23406895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livtontea/pseuds/livtontea
Summary: On October thirty-first, nineteen eighty-one, Lily and James Potter are twenty-one years old, with a year-old son named Harry.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	september's just around the corner

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this because i was sleep deprived during a convo with friends and this stemmed from it. you're welcome  
> thanks ren @rench-dressing for betaing this ily  
> this is extremely ooc i think and also i don't care because i wrote this for me but you can read it too its ok

On October thirty-first, nineteen eighty-one, Lily and James Potter are twenty-one years old, with a year-old son named Harry. Godric's Hollow is drenched in dark, with a storm brewing overhead. Lily has just put the baby to sleep and the couple is waiting. They're not certain what they're waiting for, exactly, but they can take a guess.

Peter Pettigrew is not here with them. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are off doing their own thing, together or not, it doesn't matter. The family cat, grey with dark stripes and cleverly named Minerva—Sirius thought it was hilarious—is in the living room with the two, yellow eyes bright in the darkness, both of them watching the house's main entrance.

When he arrives, there is no knock on the door.

Voldemort comes into their home like a hurricane—fast, loud, and with no manners to be seen. He explodes the front door and stands in front of the house for a beat, ugly cloak billowing out behind him, and then steps inside. James draws his wand. Lily rushes upstairs to Harry.

"Good day," says James, his wand pointed at Voldermort's chest. The villain sneers at it, though maybe it's more of a smirk. James assumes that from Voldemort's point of view, this is a very smirk-worthy moment.

Voldemort's spindly fingers point his own wand at the father of the baby he is here to kill, and very rudely, he spits, _"Avada Kedavra!"_

The thing is, today isn't a good day for being brutally murdered. Well, it never really is, but today especially. It's going to storm, and James Potter is a father and a husband. He has a _wife._ He has—they have—a _baby._ If he died right now, it would be dreadfully inconvenient. So James casually side-steps the spell and winces as it hits a vase. It's an ugly one from Lily's old bat of a sister, but the porcelain is going to be a pain to clean up.

"What." Voldemort clenches his wand in confusion and rage. Not one for quitting, he tries again.

James ducks under the Avada. And then dodges another one. And then twirls in a way only James Potter, Quidditch enthusiast, Marauder, can do. (That's probably a lie, but this is his moment. He's allowed to exaggerate things, just a little.)

"How are you doing this," spits Voldemort. He fires off another curse. James artfully bends backward and lets it fly over his head. "You shouldn't be able to do this, _how are you doing this?"_

"James," says Lily from the top of the stairs. "Could you quiet down? You'll wake Harry."

"Yeah," says James, turning to Voldemort with a scolding glare. "You'll wake the baby. Look, we're busy right now, and our abrupt and unjust death just doesn't fit into our schedule." Lily hums in agreement. "Mate, I know this was in your evil plan or whatever, but could you postpone our murder? To, say, next Tuesday?"

His wife nods. "We're free on Tuesday."

"Wh—" sputters Voldemort. _"Die, muggle scum!"_

"That's crude and very impolite of you," points out Lily. "Look, I don't care how set you were on this, I'm not dying without sending Remus my blackmail on Sirius. Seriously—" James coughs into his fist to hide a slightly hysterical smile, "—do you reckon we could reschedule? If Tuesday doesn't work for you we could do Saturday?"

"We're busy Saturday, Bathilda wanted to come over."

"Well, a month from Saturday, then? We have a Monday available. Of course, this is just if you don't fancy Tuesday, we're still free on Tuesday—"

Voldemort's face, if it weren't so pale and ugly, would have gone purple. "I'M—"

Lily crosses her arms. James silently takes a step backward to the bottom of the stairs. "If you're not going to cooperate we'll have to cancel altogether, and kick you from the mortal coil, just make up your fucking mind."

"Oh shit," whispers James. When Lily begins dropping curses around Harry, things are going to get very serious, very fast. Good. The arsehole in their living room deserves it.

"I AM THE DARK LORD," screeches the Dark Lord as he sends another killing curse through the air, this time at Lily. She deflects it with a Protego. It harmlessly bounces off the floor and singes the carpet. Pity. She likes that carpet. "HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT? YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO—"

"Oh, just SHUT UP!" Lily rushes down the stairs, fiery red hair streaming behind her. She nearly knocks over her husband, who looks at her with pure awe on his face. James may have a thing for women ready to kick arse. He also has a thing for his wife, so it works out very well. "Mate, I have _had it._ You come into my home, you shatter my _vase,_ " Lily says, punctuating her words with a series of jabs to Voldemort's disgustingly greasy cloak. He steps back in surprise, not even attempting murder for what must be the twentieth time in the last half-hour.

A childish wail sounds from the room upstairs. Everything freezes.

Lily's fist clenches tight around her wand. Her face is filled to the brim with rage. The kind of rage only a mother who has spent over an hour putting her child to sleep only for them to be carelessly woken up by some monumental prick without any manners can have. The kind of rage that has been simmering under her skin for a while now, most likely, and is now finally boiling over in a flood of pure fury.

_"AND YOU WAKE UP MY SON FROM HIS NAP!"_

Let it be known that in his entire existence, Voldemort, also known as the Dark Lord, and also (but to a much lesser extent) known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, and some other bullshit pseudonyms made by him and given to him along the way, has never seen such rage. Which makes sense, of course—he's never tried to kill a baby before. Much less a baby with his mother present. Much less tried to kill the mother of the baby while she has the knowledge that it's her child's turn after he's through with her.

Voldemort has never been faced with pure motherly rage. Not once. Not before this moment—not before Lily Potter gets up in his face and screams at him, taking stabs at him with her wand.

James, who loves his wife very much—has loved her for a frankly ridiculous amount of time—watches Lily fucking obliterate the very enemy they've been fighting against. He sighs, wonderstruck. What a woman. He almost can't believe she agreed to marry him.

"HOW DARE YOU!" booms Lily, crowding Voldemort to the gaping hole in place of where the door was that morning. He looks just about ready to shit himself. Lily may not be tall, but she makes up for her lack of height with an influx of passion.

"GO! GET OUT! NEVER SHOW YOURSELF HERE AGAIN, HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-RESPECTED-IN-ANY-WAY-SHAPE-OR-FORM-BECAUSE-HE-CAN'T-EVEN-BE-BOTHERED-TO- _OPEN-A-FUCKING-DOOR!"_ Lily takes a gasp of air. "I SWEAR TO MERLIN IF I EVER SEE YOU AROUND HERE AGAIN, YOU WILL NOT HAVE TIME TO SAY _'ABRACADABRA'_ BEFORE I HEX YOU OFF OF THE MORTAL COIL."

Voldemort drops backward. Lily snaps her mouth shut, breathing heavily through her nose. Slowly, James walks over and pokes the tosser with the toe of his shoe. Voldermort begins to disintegrate. That's not normal for cadavers, but oh, who gives a shit.

"He's dead," he announces against the backdrop of the thunderstorm that seems much quieter now. "Lils, you killed him. Merlin, I love you."

Lily blows a strand of hair away from her face. "I killed him?"

"You killed him!" James plants a slightly messy kiss on Lily's lips. "With your kick-arse-ness. With your sheer fucking force of will. WIth your unimaginable power—"

"Alright, I get it," she cuts him off. "I'm bloody wonderful. What now?"

"Now we call Dumbledore, or, or somebody, and tell them it's over. The war is over." James kisses Lily again. "I can't believe you—this is the angriest you've been since Hogwarts."

"He had it coming."

"Hell yes, he had it coming. Do you reckon Harry is doing okay up there?"

Lily swears. "Alright, can you just—clean up this mess, will you? And I'll check on Harry. Love you."

"Aye, captain," says James. "Love you too, you ferocious angel of rightful destruction."

And so James and Lily Potter don't die in Godric's Hollow that Halloween night. Lily goes upstairs to put her baby back to sleep, and James repairs the carpet and gets rid of the ugly remains of the vase. Harry sleeps peacefully, Minerva watching over him.

Sirius and Remus find this entire thing, frankly, terrifying. Absolutely mind-boggling, horrible, and hilarious to no end. Of course, it would be the bloody Potters to defeat the menace in a ripped up cloak (horrible fashion choices were made by Voldemort, and hopefully nobody with the exception of Dementors tries to recreate them) with nothing but the unbridled unwillingness to die. Truly impressive. And horrifying.

"Mate, why didn't you just spear him with your antlers?" Sirius asks James, who wrinkles his nose and sheepishly admits he hadn't thought of that. Then he immediately counters and says he didn't want to get blood on his antlers anyway.

Peter Pettigrew remains absent. Dumbledore insists that he'll come on his own—Remus says that if he's too coward to show something fishy was going on with him anyway.

When Lily tucks Harry in at night, she smiles and kisses her son's forehead, promising that she will never leave him. From the doorway, James agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> and so harry potter was known at The Boy Whose Parents Kicked Voldermort's Ass
> 
> this was fun to write, ty for reading it! if u liked it you're welcome to leave a comment lol :)


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